The union goes to Washington

Inquirer City Hall Staff

Members of the American Federal, State, County and Municipal Employees union protested Mayor Nutter Friday outside the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting in Washington, D.C., in a show of solidarity with their brethren in Philadelphia.

Mayor Nutter is president of the U.S. Conference, and the union took the organization’s meeting as an opportunity to let the world know about the nearly four-year negotiating stalemate between Nutter and the two AFSCME unions representing city nonuniformed workers, District Councils 33 and 47. An AFSCME spokesman put the crowd at 500, though Heard in the Hall had no way to verify that number. The mayor says he is willing to raise the pay of unionized city employees, but only if they agree to concessions, such as changes to the pension for new workers.